The metabolic status of encysted Artemia embryos under anoxic conditions has been studied by calorimetry. Previous work demonstrated a very low, but still measurable, source of metabolic heat (31 nW mg-1 dry mass) after 6 days of anoxia, attributed to the catabolism of small amounts of carbohydrate storage compounds and the unusual nucleotide diguanosine tetraphosphate. Our results indicate that the heat measured drops below the detection limits of our calorimeter (11 nW mg-1 dry mass) after 1.5 h of anoxia, in sharp contrast with previously published results. The possible sources of error that could explain this difference, and a re-evaluation of the metabolic status of cysts during anoxia, are discussed. We conclude that if the cysts are carefully protected from oxygen they become essentially ametabolic.
In the field: an interview with Sönke Johnsen
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Sönke Johnsen is a Professor at Duke University, USA, investigating visual ecology and he talks about his experiences of collecting transparent animals while blue water diving and in a submersible, as well as outrunning Hurricane Katrina.
Call for new preLighters
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preLights is the preprint highlighting community supported by The Company of Biologists. At the heart of preLights are our preLighters: early-career researchers who select and write about interesting new preprints for the research community. We are currently looking for new preLighters to join our team. Find out more and apply here.
Graham Scott in conversation with Big Biology
Graham Scott talks to Big Biology about the oxygen cascade in mice living on mountaintops, extreme environments for such small organisms. In this JEB-sponsored episode, they discuss the concept of symmorphosis and the evolution of the oxygen cascade.
Cleaner fish are potential super-spreaders
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Bluestreak cleaner wrasse spend their days pecking parasites off the skins of other fish, but now Pauline Narvaez & co have found that they may also be inadvertent super-spreaders. Parasitic flatworms can hitch a ride on the cleaners to reach their next host.
Hearing without a tympanic ear
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In their Review, Grace Capshaw, Jakob Christensen-Dalsgaard and Catherine Carr explore the mechanisms of hearing in extant atympanate vertebrates and the implications for the early evolution of tympanate hearing.
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